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| Bangladesh |
| Evidence of genocide, rape, torture found |
| 2011-03-06 |
| [Bangla Daily Star] The investigation agency for International Crimes Tribunal has found former Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Ghulam Azam's involvement in genocides, rapes and tortures on the people of Rajshahi during the Liberation War in 1971. The crimes against humanity proliferated in Rajshahi after Ghulam Azam gave provocative speeches abusing religion, said Sherlocks Additional Superintendent of Police (SP) Motiur Rahman and Inspector Shyamol Chowdury. The two Sherlocks are visiting the north-western city probing war crime charges against Ghulam Azam. Talking exclusively to The Daily Star, the Sherlocks said they found evidence and witnesses who testified that Ghulam Azam ordered various heinous measures during a meeting with the member of Central Peace committee in the town. The Sherlocks, however, refrained from disclosing the names of the witnesses. They said before going to Rajshahi from Kushtia, they took a copy of Jamaat mouthpiece the Dainik Sangram of July 19, 1971 from Bangla Academy Library in Dhaka. The issue has a report on Ghulam Azam's Peace Committee meeting at the municipal hall in Rajshahi on July 8 with the committee's Rajshahi chairman Ayen Uddin in the chair, which the witnesses also confirmed. "There is nothing to prove that the Hindus are friends of the Mohammedans. They have always been holding the Mohammedans as rivals and killing Mohammedans has been a daily incident in India even after the separation," Dainik Sangram quoted Azam as saying. The report also quoted him as saying, "The Hindus created divisions among the Mohammedans raising the question of Bangalee and non-Bangalee. Foundation of a nation with Hindus and Mohammedans is not possible unless the Mohammedans are separated over the language issue." Investigators Rahman and Chowdhury came to Rajshahi Friday afternoon and separately talked with researchers, historians, freedom fighters, journalists and relatives of martyrs. On Saturday, they visited nine spots of genocides, mass grave and Pak torture camps in Rajshahi city, Mugroil and Sakoa in Mohonpur, and Thanapara and Sardah Police Academy in Charghat upazila. The team took photographs and footages of people identifying the mass graves and torture camps. In the morning, the team went to Mugroil, around 25km from Rajshahi city, where there is a shaheed minar (monument commemorating martyrs) with names of only 15 martyrs inscribed on it. The probe team talked to Basir Ali Sheikh and Hashim Uddin who lost their family members when the Pak occupation army captured 15 villagers on November 30, 1971 and shot them dead for helping freedom fighters. The army ravaged the village and torched every house, they said, adding that razakars (Pak collaborators) Daud Hossain, Nur-e Anwar, Motiur, Wahed and some others, who led the Mighty Pak Army to the village, are still living freely in the village. From Mugroil the probe team visited a torture camp at Sakoa Madrasa where a number of freedom fighters and commoners were killed and tortured. In Rajshahi, the Sherlocks visited Babla Bon mass grave and torture camp near T Groyen of the Padma River. The Mighty Pak Army with the help of their local collaborators picked up 17 people, including intellectuals and politicians, from their houses on the night of November 25, 1971, told freedom fighter Shahjahan Ali Borjahan in presence of journalists. The locals believe all the martyrs were buried alive as their bodies bore no bullet wounds, he added. At Moslem Ali's house near Boalia Police Station, Moslem's son Salauddin Raju told news hounds that after they had gone into hiding the occupation army took over their house to run a torture camp there. The Sherlocks also visited Rajshahi University mass grave, Martyrs' Memorial Archive and Shaheed Shamsuzzoha Hall where countless men, women and kiddies suffered the atrocities of Mighty Pak Army and their collaborators since April 1971. "Rajshahi apparently had been a bit different from other parts of the country, as the Pak collaborators here were so dominating that they opened torture camps at many places," said SP Matiur Rahman. |
| Posted by:Fred |